Envy is the basis of democracy.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.